a cure for the common block

Sometimes You Hear the Bullet

The last thing Derek wanted to do was watch the movie again, but the decision wasn’t up to him – it was up to his captors. It was a reenactment of an incident that occurred fifty years earlier, when Derek was only in high school. A figure strolled into a park wearing a black mask and red cloak. At first it drew curiosity but fear grew the longer it roamed without saying a word, it loomed closer to people staring at their faces, forcing them to stare back into its own hauntingly light blue eyes. Seconds before the crowd reached a breaking point the Reaper-like figure brandished two guns and began firing at as many people as possible – with precision. The killer was apprehended and only two of the seventeen victims survived: Marie & Alexander, a newly-engaged couple. When Derek was released for good behavior after serving forty years of a life sentence, their children decided he should also face punishment for a victim previously unaccounted for: Marie and Alexander’s unborn child.